Puckstopshere Kukla's Korner
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Highest Paid Team
The highest paid team in the NHL so far this season according to its salary cap hit (from capfriendly.com) is the Detroit Red Wings. They have a projected salary cap hit of $79.68 million this season. This is despite the fact that the NHL salary cap this season is $73.0 million. They are using longterm injured reserve to go $6.68 million over the cap.
Johan Franzen, Darren Helm and Joe Vitale are all on the longterm injured reserve. This allows the Red Wings to go nearly $9 million above the salary cap.
Franzen is the most disturbing of these players. He played two games last season and will probably never play another NHL game. He is out with "concussion like symptoms" and will remain that way until 2020. It has been an inequity in the salary cap that teams can hide bad contracts by leaving a player on the long-term injured reserve for years while they no longer try to play in the NHL. Johan Franzen is a clear case of this.
Salary-wise it gets worse for the Red Wings. They also signed Pavel Datsyuk who has a $7.5 million salary cap hit. They have been fortunate to trade his salary to Arizona.